How to choose a wool carpet?
It is worth taking the time to choose a wool carpet, because it is a product that will decorate your home not for several years or decades, but for a lifetime, and it may even be an item that will make your children happy, and their children after them... This is not an exaggeration - especially with hand-woven carpets, they gain value over time and "know how to age". In the following article, we will guide you through the selection of a suitable rug, answer your most common questions about wool rugs and introduce you to our basic range of our wool rugs. Let's get started!
Which carpet to put in the hallway and which one for the bedroom? High-pile or smoothly woven?
The basic criteria by which we divide wool carpets is whether they have a long pile or are smoothly woven. Smooth woven carpets can withstand a heavier strain and are therefore suitable for busy areas such as hallways. They're also more practical to maintain if they get dirty, and they're also far more resistant to being stepped on.
Runners are most useful in walk-through rooms, hallways, corridors, stairwells, kitchens, bathrooms and even children's rooms. It doesn't have to be just elongated hallway and staircase filling, we also produce runners in the classic dimensions of piece rugs. If you don't see one of these in our offer, we can make it to order - exactly to your needs, in the size and colours you want. We will produce and deliver it within two months. The advantage of custom production is the price per m2, which is the same as the price of the carpets we have in stock.
Another advantage of the runner is that you can wash it in the washing machine, of course, if its dimensions and weight allow you to do so. Wash it on the wool programme and it will be as good as new again. And if you irreparably damage one side of the tread, trample it or get it dirty, simply reverse the runner. The rug is reversible and will last twice as long!
Smooth woven carpets
Smooth woven rugs are also our hand woven kilims. As a rule, due to their price, they are not placed in the most stressed areas. Thanks to their bold colours and patterns, they are always a solitaire that will command attention in any space. It is therefore good to take into account that its expressiveness predestines it to dominate the interior.
It is suitable for the main living area of a house, a library, a bedroom, a study or even a conservatory. We can adapt it to your requirements. We can produce it in the exact size, pattern and colour you need. We can also adapt the colours to your ideas - the yarn for each kilim is dyed individually and therefore we can even affect such small nuances as the difference between light and dark ochre shades.
You can learn about their illustrious history, which earned them a prominent place in European salons as early as the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries here. Kilims, also known as the Pearl of the Balkans, are still only handmade, from the dyeing of the yarn to the actual weaving. Believe it or not, it takes 10-14 days to weave one square meter of kilim! Due to the density of the weave, these kilims are very durable and long lasting. It is often stated that they can withstand 20 years of very heavy use, on each side, as we are talking about double-sided carpets here too. A total of 40 years of hard use.
High-pile rugs
The counterpart to plain woven kilims and runners are high pile rugs. The pile length ranges from 3-5 cm (classic carpet) to 20-25 cm (halishte).
Classic rugs with a final height of about 3 cm can be used in the living room, bedroom and children's room. They can withstand heavy loads and, thanks to their higher weight, they hold well in place and do not shift, even without additional securing, e.g. with rubber pads. These rugs can also be used in a small format as a seat cushion on a chair or bench. We can also produce this type of rug to order in the size and colour you require.
Classic carpets are made from spun wool - specifically from pre-cut pieces of wool yarn, hand-tied into a wool warp. Threading the yarn tightly creates the impression of a mossy surface that is typical of classic rugs. This is the same production method used to bind Persian rugs and they have quite a lot in common with them.
Guber is a lightweight and machine-made, and therefore cost-effective, version of a classic carpet. It is a lightweight carpet made from unspun wool that is woven into the warp on an automatic loom. The surface feels soft to the touch and looks like lamb fur, but don't be fooled. It is a woven shearling wool product, so no sheep died to make it. Its advantage over fur is its light weight, which makes it easier to handle and maintain. The natural look will be appreciated by lovers of natural aesthetics, but also by pets, for example, for whom the guber can create a cosy bed.
The guber is a good relaxation surface, so it can also be used for yoga and meditation exercises. Due to the nature of the guber and its light weight, we recommend its use in the bedroom or other less frequented and less busy rooms. The guber can also be used as a bedspread over a bed or divan, or as a seat cushion. Thanks to its light weight, you can wash it in the washing machine if it gets dirty, which is often impossible with other carpets.
A unique feature among our carpets is the Rhodope hand-knotted halishte. It finds its application in rooms intended for relaxation - bedrooms, living rooms, libraries, in front of the fireplace. It has a distinctive look which, to a Central European eye not used to the Karakatsan wool from which it is made, may remind one of the coat of a large turo. Its natural elegance makes it suitable for a wide range of interiors - minimalist, retro, functionalist or even Scandinavian - which is where we have many customers.
It tends to become the dominant element of the interior, which you should bear in mind when planning your house. The halishte has a higher weight, so it holds well in place. As well as being used on the floor, it can also be used as an original throw over a double bed or sofa. We will be happy to produce it in the size and colour you require.
It is a very distinctive rug with an interesting history, which you can also read about here. It is still made today only by hand-weaving wool pile up to 20-25 cm long into wool warp. The final height of the carpet is about 10 cm. It resembles fur in appearance, but it is again shearling wool, so no animal died to produce it.
Natural or dyed?
In this case it is purely a question of taste. We make all types of carpets from natural undyed wool. If you like the natural look of a rug, you really have a wide choice. If you are after a coloured rug, then you can choose between kilims, runners and classic rugs.
The halishte in particular makes its natural colouring just that unique - each individual piece is an original, with individual shades ranging from pale white to amber, to shades of grey, grey-brown, chestnut brown, to deep black wool, all over the halishte surface, blending in subtle ripples...
However, when ordering a bespoke halishte, this is exactly what needs to be taken into account - even if we receive an order from you for a single-colour rug in a light brown shade, the final impression will be predetermined by the currently available Karakatchan wool and will also reflect the talent and artistic ability of the weaver who has bound your rug. In any case, it will be an original, one-of-a-kind rug.
We also produce undyed gubers in a natural light cream wool colour. Natural tones also suit classic rugs, for which we have three yarns in stock as standard - light white-beige, grey-brown and dark brown. These shades can be used for single-colour or multi-colour rugs - typically, for example, the ermine pattern. On the other hand, a coffee shade, for example, is achieved by using light and dark yarns at the same time. For classic rugs, we also have a wide range of coloured yarns from which we can produce your carpet.
Natural colours also suit runners. We offer standard single and multi-coloured runners made only from natural yarns. However, the runners are characterised by distinctive colours or the combination of different coloured stripes. These carpets are based on the tradition of the colourful Bulgarian rugs called cherga, which are characterised by their distinctive multicoloured stripes. Of course, more subtle colour combinations can also be achieved, it is up to you and your specifications. We also have new geometric patterns among the runners, which can be coloured to match your interior.
A completely separate chapter are the hand-woven kilims, which we can make for you from natural undyed yarn as well as coloured yarns. Bold colours are typical for kilims and for combining coloured yarns, kilim patterns are very important. With traditional patterns, a colour balance has been achieved over the centuries that makes it almost impossible to take our eyes off the kilim. However, if you have a different idea and want to colour-match the kilim, this is no problem for us. Since kilims are woven by hand, there is no need to complexly reconfigure the automatic looms - everything is done on the fly during the actual weaving. We can customize the yarn shades down to the last detail. And we offer one more specialty for kilims - we can dye the yarn for your kilim from natural sources according to traditional recipes. The final impression of a naturally dyed kilim is slightly less bright and bold colours - such a kilim seems to carry the natural patina of decades and beautiful balanced colour combinations right from the start.
Hand woven/knotted or machine woven?
Here, it's all about economic choice for a change. Hand-woven kilims are the most time-consuming, with one square metre being woven by a single weaver over 10-14 days in an average eight-hour shift. It is logical that such time consumption must be reflected in the final price of the kilim. However, its value tends to increase over time, as the weaving of Bulgarian kilims from Stara Planina is listed as an intangible cultural asset under UNESCO protection and each kilim is de facto a unique work of art. Kilim can thus serve well for saving spare funds.
Similarly, the Rhodope halishte, although not as time-consuming to make, is still hand-knotted. Each weaver, who has always had years of experience in binding halishte, also engages his creativity and talent while tying. In both cases, it is a craft that has been handed down from generation to generation. A classic rug is also handmade and it takes several days to tie an average rug, similar to a halishte. All the products in the hand woven/bound category are of excellent quality and very long lasting.
Machine woven runners and gubers, on the other hand, are characterised by their simple and time-saving production, which also makes their price per square metre much more favourable. The price of a guber is a third of the price of its hand-knotted counterpart, the halishte. In the case of a runner, it is even only one-fifth the price of its smooth-woven counterpart, kilim! Therefore, if you are looking for a low-cost solution, focus on runners and gubers. At the same time, we recommend these machine-made rugs - especially runners - if you are looking for rugs for extremely stressed areas such as hallways, kitchens or children's rooms.
We hope this article has helped you to find your way around wool rugs. If you choose yours adequately for your needs, taking into account the above information, we are confident that it will serve you well for many decades. If you did not find the information you are interested in in this article, please email us at info@balkanova.eco.
